Obama: ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ Could Lose Their Jobs

It's politics as usual in Washington where President Obama on Tuesday warned of the real-life impact on Americans from various walks of life if sweeping, indiscriminate spending cuts known as sequester are enacted on March 1.

The president called it "troubling" that Congress would allow the deep spending reductions to happen, saying, it "won't help the economy, won't create jobs [and] will visit hardship on a whole lot of people.”

Surrounded by cops and emergency responders in a White House auditorium, Obama described how $85 billion in "meat-cleaver" cuts -- the first in a series of reductions adding up to $1.2 trillion over a decade that target Pentagon and domestic programs -- "will jeopardize our military readiness."

Others whose lives will be negatively impacted by the automatic cuts on March 1, according to Obama, include teachers, Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, federal prosecutors, air traffic controllers, airport security, parents who depend on day care and Americans who rely on primary care and preventive care such as flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.

What's more, the president cautioned the cuts "will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs."

House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday responded to President Obama's call for Congress to avoid "meat-cleaver" cuts set to take effect March 1 by promising to hold the Republican line on avoiding higher taxes.

Obama called on Congress to act but with the House and Senate in recess until February 25, it gives lawmakers just four days to either follow the White House directive or else watch the sequester take place on March 1.

It's a game of cat and mouse, where each side wants to make its own rules. And that's a game where there can be no winners.